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Monday, June 28, 2010

Gold: How to Compile a Crazily Talented Cast and Proceed to Make One the Worst Films Ever Known to Mankind

Gold. I just don't understand this movie. TECHNICALLY speaking it had quite a lot of promise. However, SOMETHING was lost in translation (something, as in any resemblance to a half-way well-made film).

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed all the tweets-- ALL AFTERNOON LONG-- about this movie! I was definitely having fun making fun of it.

ANYWAY, this film had a cast full of brilliant actors (click to enlarge):

Roger Moore, unfortunately playing a creeper and a wanna-be antihero. But, definitely a cool creeper and wanna-be antihero. He smoked cigarettes.

Ray Milland, of course being amazing...and rather frightening...and amazing. He smoked cigars.

And the completely awesome Bradford Dillman playing a completely evil villain. He freaked out if anyone smoked anything and he was also highly germaphobic.

Also, there was Susannah York, but she drove me berserkers...so she doesn't get any screencaps.

Oh, and John Gielgud, but I COMPLETELY forgot about his character so he doesn't get any screencaps either. (It's a tough world out there for those wishing to be screencapped by The Millie. ;-D You must be both exceedingly cool....AND not annoying.)

The DVD I had (from my library) was horrible quality. I first "quipped" (I tell jokes to myself. It's true.) that is must have been taped off of the TV or something because of how grainy it was (the reason for the poor quality screencaps). After a little watching, I came to the conclusion it really MUST HAVE BEEN TAPED OFF OF THE TV! The language was censored! At least, I'm pretty sure it was. There were all these little "gliches" in the audio. ;-D They occurred when people said: "Why you-- *glich*"; "Shut that--*glich* thing". I was perfectly fine with that (I dislike swearing in movies anyway), but it did make me laugh!

When I started this movie I was kind of expecting an "awesomely bad" movie (I'm now quoting myself too. THIS IS PATHETIC! ;-D). My expectations increased when the credits appeared:

Backed by a song about gold and how horrible and deadly it is, at this POINT I WAS GETTING EXCITED for the awesome badness.

But it all sort of fell through, and I was left with just a bad film.

A major weakness was Susannah York. Her character was SO UTTERLY ANNOYING. Sheesh! A huge chunk of the middle was devoted to her and Roger being in love or something like that! OH MY GOSH. The second I saw them flying off in an airplane with a Velveeta level cheesy song playing in the background-- I HAD IT. I skipped right through their scenes.

NOTE: I'm sure you are all very reassured by the fact that I don't actually watch entire films before I give them scathing reviews. ;-D

And of course there was the aforementioned fact of Roger playing a complete creeper! I don't know if you are familiar with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but Roger's character was oddly reminiscent of the creeper in MTM named Barry Barlow:

Who walks up to women saying, "Hey, I'm, uh, Barry Barlow" *takes off sunglasses*. This was SO Roger's character-- except with a British accent.

But, seriously though, poor Roger! As he was making this "film" he was trying to quite smoking, so OF COURSE, his character smoking ending up being important to the plot! The only time he got out of it was during a scene with Bradford:

Roger lights up:

Bradford FREAKS out and tells him to not smoke in his house:

Roger gives him a "what the heck do mean I can't smoke, you creep" look, while secretly thinking: "Heh heh heh, nice ad-lib Bradford! I'll remember to tell the credit people to make the lettering in your name a little larger!"

Really, this brings us to the complete awesomeness of Bradford Dillman! I adore him, but no one ever seems to know who he is! (So, I've decided to write a post just about him and his complete awesomeness! Look for that soon.) In this he is the main bad guy: cruel, heartless, and possessing a completely cool evil smile. The scenes with him-- by himself or interacting with anybody-- are the best in the movie. Well, except for the scene where Ray Milland plays bocce ball. THAT IS THE COOLEST SCENE THE MOVIE! Sorry I have no screencaps, I was completely transfixed by his bocce ball skills! ;-D

Another small part of the movie, I really loved was the handshake between Simon Sabela and Ray Milland. This movie is set in South Africa, but I guess hand-shakes are similar throughout Africa because it's the EXACT same hand-shake of Sierra Leone (I went to Sierra Leone twice last year)!

It consists of a normal shake and then twisting your hands around and then back to normal again. It's very important in Sierra Leone culture.Yeah, that's pretty much the first thing one learns in Sierra Leone, because if you don't complete the hand-shake, they will just leave their hand up......AWKWARD.

A gif of the hand-shake in the film:

Of course this brings me to Simon Sabela's character. A wonderful, courageous person. THE ONLY COMPLETELY GOOD GUY IN THE MOVIE. SPOILER ALERT! Of course they kill him off. Sheesh. END SPOILER ALERT!

Well, there's not much left for me to say about this movie, except that it's pretty much awesomeless badness....with an Elmer Bernstein score.

And really, don't be fooled by these foreign DVD covers (at least the Americans were decent enough to give it a dorky DVD cover ;-D):

"NOTE: I'm sure you are all very reassured by the fact that I don't actually watch entire films before I give them scathing reviews." <--Millie, you are fantastically hilarious! I love reading your posts. They always crack me up!

"Barry Barlow" <--yes, he was great. I enjoy the MTM show, as much as I hate the '70s. Sometimes I think it might've been the only good thing to come out of that awful decade of bad hair and ugly clothes. But anyway…

Oh, and that African handshake! Yes! I have not been to Africa, but a guy who was in the Peace Corp (I think that's how it went) taught us that, so when we had a missionary priest from Ghana come to our house for dinner he was really surprised that we knew that when we greeted him. So, yeah, it must be for all of Africa. I think it's wildly cool, though. I mean, we need an awesome American handshake to floor foreigners with!